Still The Sun...

Only the sun now. No more nights. No rain, no clouds, no seasons. Only the sun, still yet and always, the sun.

Submitted: February 14, 2012

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Submitted: February 14, 2012

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Still the Sun...

It’s mind-blowing. And, not in the good old pay your money, get your ticket, stop to buy popcorn and a soda and probably a Kit Kat or one of those obscene boxes of butterscotch-nut clusters
and then make your way inside to plop down in a chair that’s thickly upholstered and swings back and forth to allow for the tromping past of other people and settle your bones comfortably to watch
the latest 3-D Big Screen Movie kind of way. Nope. Oh, you got surround sound and huge images, you sure do. But not for the price of a ticket. No, the price for this show is
your way of life. And it isn’t stadium theater, either. It’s reality. It’s the sun.

It’s been the sun for days and days. Seventeen of them now. In all that time, the sun has never set. Or rather, it loops through the sky so rapidly that if you aren’t seeing the sun
itself you’re seeing its blurred after-glow. which is only for less than hour, over there in the west, before there it is again. The sun.Popping its red and fiery face up over
there in the east.Back again.Around the world and back again.In no time.

On a continuous marathon.Around and around the globe the sun goes. Quick time. Or maybe Earth is spinning around the sun. Bella doesn’t know. If she ever did
know, she’s forgotten.And what difference does it make anyway? It’s been going on for too long now. This new reality. When she thinks about it, really
concentrates, last time she saw a night sky was in July. After sunset, about 8:30 PM. That was the last time.

Time. Time doesn’t matter any more now. It’s gone all weird as well.Everything. Seasons -- they’re messed up if things don’t go back to normal soon. Tides? Oh,
don’t even go there. All the things on and in the water? Probably dead. Maybe dead. Mother Nature has decided to show humanity what Global Warming is, for real.

Bella shakes her head and pulls the heavy drapes closed over already the closed blinds. No matter the time, all blinds and shades are kept drawn. Not only is the sun super-hot now, but
its light is super-bright. Like having the sun aimed right at you. She doesn’t remember the sun ever being so bright, giving off so much light. Or heat. Not in her lifetime. Not
normal sun -- only there in daytime, gone at night. Isn’t the sun the reason it’s called day?It is, isn’t it?At least that’s how Bella thinks it is. Or
was.

Nighttimes. Nights. Lord, how she misses them. Such a simple thing, you’d think.No. It was more that it was so simple you never did think. Like how your
eyes that blink without you telling them. Nights were like that.They just came. Followed on the heels of day. Nothing you had to do about it. Nothing you could
do. Now there’s nothing you can do about nights being gone and the sun being all there is. All the time. Still the sun.Still, just the sun.

She doesn’t care what time it is. She’s going to get into bed. And go to sleep. When she’s asleep she has the most wonderful dreams. Because, in her dreams, things are back
to normal. That’s all she wants right now. To have proper days and proper nights, at least for a bit. Sleep comes easily to her, which is a blessing.

Often when she closes her eyes now, she thinks of life before this. When it was all about people. What they did and what they said. People-things. People-stuffs. What
Myrtle had to say about Dicky and Joyce, and what Tim told her about Alice’s job and Alice’s boss, and how Bella saw Wayne last week and wondered if the woman he was with was his new love or just
one of the junior techs at his job, and how her housekeeper fell and she had called the son to let him know and his wife had bitched at her about it, and how Mr. Samuel’s dog had had four pups and
he had given one to his grandson, which made his daughter mad, and how Bella had found out her landlord was raising the rent on the people who lived across the way but not on her. And that
was just about her small circle.

There’d been all the people and things in the news. On TV or the radio. Or in blogs or on face book or in that tweeting or twittering, which you can’t do any of anymore. She
doesn’t understand it. It’s gone all cockeyed. Nothing electronic works now. The sun has blown it all out. Something about atmospherics. Some - - -.Some
some things.She doesn’t know. Communications are all gone. So everything about people and politics and athletes and stars and about crimes and medical research and wars and
tragedies and good things and awful things and all the dumb unnecessary silly stuff -- everything that not so long ago made up all of human life -- it just isn’t any more. There’s no
way to know about it anyway.It’s exhausting just to think of all that.What had been her life. Been human life. Everyone’s life. Not now. Now
everything’s wrong. Because of the sun and what it’s doing.?
Leaving the living room, she made her way to the bedroom. She doesn’t need lights. She doesn’t have them, but she doesn’t need them. No one does. It’s bright all the
time. Now everyone uses heavy drapes to pull across their windows, even when their shades and blinds are already down. To shut out the light from the sun.For awhile.
To pretend. Only you can’t, really. Not when you’re using candles. Everyone’s using candles again. Fancy that. Used to be a treat. Decorations. Just for a
fancy dinner. Now it’s necessity. If you want to escape the sun and still be able to see.Candles.Who’d’ve thought.

Lord, it is hot. How she’d love to throw open a window. It gets so stuffy with things closed up all the time like this.But open a window? That just lets in the
relentless light.And more heat. When it’s hot already. And dry! That’s another thing. Clouds have all but disappeared.At least the kind that used
to hang low and build up in banks. The kind that brought rain. No rain for nearly five months now. And she lives in a part of the country where fog and rain had been the
norm. Now there’s no fog. She loved fog. And rain. Loved the smells rain would bring out. Of buildings. And streets.Up from the earth. Down
from the trees.

She would not cry. She would NOT.Life has gone bad, like an apple with a rotten spot in it. But she won’t cry. She’s cried all her tears and it hasn’t changed a
thing. She sheds her clothes quickly and, pulling a gown on, climbs into bed.

The town has put a limit on water usage. Nothing’s piped any more. No electricity, no pumps. Only got the town wells now. There’s been no rain. And unless it --
whatever it is -- changes, there’ll be no snow either. Water. Water will be a real issue. Long before this thing with the sun happened, a few years back, there had been talk about
hauling ice floes or some such down from the arctic. When water supplies out west were getting low. She always wondered if they were hauling ice down from the arctic, wouldn’t it be frozen
ocean water? What would be the sense of that? Salty water. No, there must be frozen fresh water. Mustn’t there?She doesn’t know.

She doesn’t know much of anything any more. The only way you can know anything is person to person. But no one can stay out in the sun for long. Too hot. Too bright.
So people don’t gather. They don’t need to. What’s happened is that their world has got broken. She doesn’t understand it, but what difference does it make whether she does or
not? What isn’t there, isn’t there. That’s what you have to live with. There’s no more arguing over big government or no big government.There may as well not be a
government at all. Not any more.What could it do? No. People are on their own now.With the sun.Just the sun.Still the
sun.

This might be one of my favorite stories on Booksie. I don’t have much for criticism, other than the issue that sun exposure like this would cause global flooding (polar ice caps) but that’s completely besides the point. I do, however, have 4 ‘likes’:

I like the first paragraph’s gigantic sentence. 80% of it is a long and drawn out adjective that humorously describes a movie theater.

I like how subtle the ‘seventeen days’ thing prepares for the super-sun.

I like when stories do as yours did; narrate the reactions/dealings of a very strange situation without revealing any information about it. Very similar to a Stephen King technique, or Kafka even.

I like that it’s an inverse of human fears- We fear darkness, generally, but here you have a society ruined by light- by the sun!

AuthorReply

Comment | 71 words

Tue, February 14th, 2012 7:54pm

Wow, Matt. Thanks. I love run-on sentences when they obey me! I went, as I do, with what wanted to be told. Science not my long (or short) suit, as you could tell. Thanks for stepping high over that omission! It was a mind-boggler to me, too. My stories come out of somewhere and surprise me as much as anyone. I truly appreciate your comments. Thanks so much.
All regards, Connie

Wow. How mind-boggeling. Where on earth do you get these ideas? That bright damned sun was blinding me!

Conbur... A variation of your two names, I like it!

~MA~

AuthorReply

Comment | 100 words

Wed, February 15th, 2012 4:42pm

Hi MA: I don't know! That's the simple answer. If I'd thought of this - tried to think it through before it began telling itself to me, I wouldn't folded my arms and shaken my head in a definite "NO." So - that's way it's so soft on the science end of it. Not my thing, at all! Weird story, huh? Thanks so much for coming over to read and taking time to comment, MA. I really appreciate it. And, no, I don't hold my tongue with your writing - not a bit.
All thanks, and many kind regards, Connie

How it can make a person want to contrive night time...reject the eternal hope of sunshine....who hasn't, literally or figuratively, at one time or another longed for a lifetime of only night time, the light of day merely a representation of another endless journey where people may walk past, even touch, but they live millions of miles away...

the cocoon of depression is death's MRI tube...you slide in, harnessed by your emotional limitations, faced only with what lies in front of your eyes...the past is unreachable...

and only you hold the remote with the 'escape' button in red, winking at you, semaphoring - 'do you want out?'

Nicely done, Connie.

AuthorReply

Comment | 117 words

Sun, May 6th, 2012 10:00am

This was all from what is really a lovely photograph and a challenge to write in response to it. The photo features the rising sun and the thought occurred - what if it never set? What if Madam Earth decided to let it all broil under the sun's fire? And I wrote.
Thoughts - dark thoughts - don't get much houseroom with me. I find I have a mental broom that chases them like spiders or mice or feral cats. OUT, I say, OUT, OUT.
You are crawling through the attic and digging in the cellar to unearth some of these pieces. For both your reading and (especially) your comments, I thank you. With much appreciation, Connie

An Apocalyptic view. Love the voice coming through. As the world change, so do the mind goes. A nice warning. Annoyance if ever the Sun would not budge, and the day last long and shine bright. Where is Night?

AuthorReply

Comment | 42 words

Tue, July 31st, 2012 7:36am

Aye, that's the question! This made me uneasy, have sweaty chills. The idea of unending sunlight - brutal heat. Apocalyptic view for sure!
Pleased that you read into it what I was feeling as I wrote. Thank you. Many kind regards, Connie